


here come the battle scars

by winchesters



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Activism, F/M, Gen, M/M, Modern AU, protest au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-04 18:12:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/713578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winchesters/pseuds/winchesters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Grantaire joins a band of young social activists planning their next revolution, he's not counting on falling for their handsome and charismatic leader, Enjolras. And he's certainly not counting on Enjolras to feel the same way. But falling in love isn't always easy between riot police, angry bankers and oil companies and nights spent in county jail.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. blue eyes and cockades

**Author's Note:**

> I felt like an AU where protesting isn't super glamorous needed to be written. Based on this: http://soyonscruels.tumblr.com/post/44865939121/look-i-get-that-people-like-writing-about-les

On Monday, it rains. It starts off as nothing more than a grey drizzle over the city, storm clouds slung over buildings. By noon it’s pouring, but by evening the rain has stopped. The pavement shines like silver beneath the streetlamps as Eponine seizes Grantaire’s hand and drags him down a broad, tree-lined avenue in a sketchy area of town. Tumbledown apartment buildings line the street, muffled rap music playing on a boombox somewhere. It’s only a few blocks from Grantaire’s downtown hovel, so it doesn’t really bother him that Eponine’s dragged him to her friend’s apartment for the evening.   
“You’ll love them,” she promises, and Grantaire doubts it because he doesn’t really love anything anymore. Not these days. These days he has very little faith in anything or anyone.   
“I’m sure,” he lies as she leads him up a flight of narrow stairs. There appears to be some miniature Yelta Convention going on inside apartment 21B. Grantaire had expected to find a bunch of dudes playing video games and drinking PBR, not a gaggle of college students making posters and stacking pamphlets while listening raptly to a young man lecturing from the kitchen table.   
“It’s time we cut the rich ones down to size,” the blonde boy declares. He can’t be older than his early twenties, late teens, even. But he has a certain charisma about him, an initial, irritable attraction. He’s wearing a red hoodie and jeans, but he looks like he belongs in a uniform. “They’ve gotten away with far too much for far too long! It’s time we take back what’s ours-it’s time to fight for our equality!”   
Everyone gives a low cheer, someone bangs their fist on the table.   
“Hey guys!” Eponine cries out over the din, waving cheerily to the blonde leader. “I brought a friend!”   
All eyes swivel to the back of the kitchen. Grantaire lifts his hand in an awkward wave.  
“Hi. I’m Grantaire.”   
Their leader stalks forwards, eyes narrow. His movements are confident but graceful, almost cat-like.   
“Is he loyal to our cause?”   
_Whoa. What the fuck_? Grantaire steps backwards.  
“Sorry, I wasn’t aware that I was walking in on a super-secret meeting,” he says. Eponine lets out a high, nervous giggle.  
“Yeah, he’s cool. He’s my best friend from high school.”   
The blonde leader eyes him up and down, and Grantaire isn’t going to lie: he’s _hot_. Like, major-league hottie, even if the way he’s scanning Grantaire’s body is more like a TSA agent than a potential hook-up.   
“Fine,” the other boy says, and he heads toward the tiny living room. “Courferyac, come here. I have something I want to show you.”   
A boy with reddish-blonde hair turns around in his chair, leaning his elbows against the back.  
“Sorry about that,” he says, an apologetic smile on his face. “Enjolras always gets a little high-strung the night before a protest.”   
“Oh. A protest, huh? Well, that explains the...” Grantaire gestures to the signs and pamphlets. He notices that most of them are warning citizens against the evils of the investment banking industry.   
“Planning on cutting the rich ones down to size tomorrow?” He asks, half-sarcastic.   
“Pretty much,” the boy replies. “I’m Jehan, by the way.”   
Jehan is handsome in a pretty, almost delicate way: hair that brushes his shoulders, a lean face, sparkling green-blue eyes. He’s wearing an old floral blazer and a bowtie.   
“Nice to meet you,” Grantaire says, and shakes his hand. Despite his flowery appearance, Jehan’s grip is firm.   
“Hey, do you have anymore duct tape?” Enjolras pokes his head around the corner, holding a bundle of cardboard. “Courf and I are almost out.”   
Jehan hands over a roll of the silver tape.   
“Yeah. I’m done with mine.”   
“Thanks,” says Enjolras. He turns to Grantaire. “If you’re planning on marching with us tomorrow and you don’t want bruised ribs, I’d suggest you start packing.”   
What language are they speaking? Grantaire wonders, accepting a few pieces of cardboard and some strips of tape from Enjolras.   
“‘Kay,” he replies, not wanting to sound stupid. As soon as Enjorlas is gone, he turns to Jehan.  
“What-”  
“We stuff our jackets with cardboard before each protest,” the other boy explains, “so that if-and usually when-the cops get rough with us, we don’t end up with bruised or broken ribs.”   
He’s smiling like this is totally normal.   
“Right,” says Grantaire. “Sure. That makes sense.”   
Jehan helps him tape together a few pieces of cardboard, his fingers nimble, his movements practiced. Eponine is chatting with a cute blonde kid in a sweater vest. Her eyes are brighter than usual, and she’s laughing. Since it doesn’t look like they’ll be leaving anytime soon, Grantaire pulls up a chair beside Jehan.   
“So, you been a member of this...club...for very long?”   
He nods and smiles.  
“Yeah. We call ourselves the ABC. Enjolras started it back in freshman year of college, and it just never died out, you know?”   
Grantaire doesn’t know. He always made a point to never join any student clubs or organizations, insisting that they ‘killed his vibe’.   
Presently, a kid with curly brown hair saunters over and drops into an empty chair.  
“‘Sup?” He shakes Grantaire’s hand. “I’m Courferyac. You can call me Courf if you want. You coming to the protest tomorrow?”   
Grantaire processes the information that’s just been hurled at him and then nods slowly.  
“Um, yeah, I guess so.”   
Courf grins and fishes for a tri-colored cockade: red, white, blue. He presses it into Grantaire’s hands; It reminds him of the pinwheels he used to play with as a kid.   
“Pin this on your jacket tomorrow, and we’ll know you’re one of us.”   
_One of us._ Grantaire finds himself nodding and slipping the cockade into his pocket. He listens to Courf and Jehan discuss how ridiculously biased their Government and Politics professor is, and he lets their voices lull him into a sort of stupor, aided by the slow thrum of blues guitar from a radio in the corner. His eyes wander, almost of their own will, to Enjolras, the handsome student talking politics with a cluster of other young men in the corner. They seem to be pouring over maps, Enjolras tracing a route with one finger.   
At midnight, Enjolras and Courferyac kick everyone out, telling them to ‘get rest for tomorrow and meet back here at six a.m. sharp’, and the students all file out, exchanging last cheers and goodnights. Grantaire thanks Jehan and Courf for letting him stay, and feels a twinge of regret when he starts thinking of excuses to blow off their protest in the morning. On his way out the door, he catches Enjolras’ eye. Piercing blue flashes against brown, and for a moment, they hold each other’s gaze. Then the door shuts, leaving Grantaire standing alone with Eponine on the stairs.   
“Excited for tomorrow?” Eponine asks as they trek back towards their building a few blocks away. “You are going, right?”   
Grantaire’s fingers find the stiff fabric of the cockade in his pocket, tracing along the ridges.   
“Yeah,” he says slowly. “I think I am.”


	2. metal and glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire attends his first 'protest', and experiences a run-in with the law.

“Remember,” says Enjolras, pacing back and forth before the assembled crowd. “This could be dangerous. Pad your jackets. Expect police brutality. Expect to be treated like the scum they take us for. But do not falter in the face of tribulation. Do not falter in the face of fear. We will fight for equality, until all are free!”   
A cheer rises from the students. They are sitting around the formica table in the kitchen, Eponine perched on Grantaire’s knee, Jehan and Courf sharing a single plastic folding chair, Combeferre sitting on the edge of the counter.   
Marius passes around a magic marker, and Combeferre instructs them to write the phone number of a lawyer that Courf knows who they can call if and when they are arrested. They gather picket signs and pamphlets and pin their cockades onto their jackets and head out the door. Grantaire walks besides Jehan as they trek towards the bustling downtown area, a mecca of banks and skyscrapers.   
“Have you been arrested before?” Grantaire asks, almost afraid to know the answer.   
“Yeah,” Jehan replies, hoisting a sign reading Equality or Bust higher over his shoulder. “Once or twice.”   
“Oh,” says Grantaire, because although he’s done some pretty stupid shit in his life, he’s never been handcuffed or slammed into a police car. “Okay then.”   
They reach the business district by eight-thirty, just in time to catch bankers hurrying into work and students on their way to the nearby university. Grantaire hangs back while Enjorlas and the others form a kind of phalanx, marching down the broad pavement, carrying signs and handing out leaflets. Most people avoid them, parents pull small children away from the group of protesters. Then Enjolras mounts the marble steps that lead to the plaza of Twenty-First Century Investment Banking’s massive edifice, and he begins to talk.  
“Citizens! Look around, and tell me: what do you see? These buildings have become temples to greed, to the destruction of democracy, to the monopoly of capitalism in this nation! While you slave away in cubicles and taxi-cabs, waiting tables, repairing cars, answering phones, these fat cats gamble your money away and profit from your struggles.”   
He gestures to the towering buildings around them, all glinting steel and glass. A small crowd has gathered now, a few teenagers in school clothes, a young man in a suit, a girl in a school uniform.   
“It’s time to fight for what is rightfully yours! Don’t let these greedy bastards take your money, take your homes, take your lives! Fight back!”   
“We will fight!” Courf shouts, thrusting his fist into the air. “Take it back! Take it all back!”   
And then they’re chanting, first just the group of protesters, then some of the students:  
“Take it back! Take it back!”  
The girl in the uniform joins them, her fist thrust in the air, a grin on her face. Suddenly, Combeferre taps Enjolras on the shoulder, gestures across the plaza. A security guard is hurrying towards them, one hand on his radio. A rent-a-cop, but the sight of his uniform makes Grantaire uneasy.   
“Folks, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave,” the guard shouts above the chanting, which quickly dies out. Enjolras turns, facing the security guard, chin tilted upwards.  
“This isn’t illegal. We have the right to peacefully assemble.”   
The guard scratches his chin.  
“I’m getting complaints,” he says slowly. “Just get out of here, okay?”   
The ABC’s have fallen silent, everyone shifting, waiting.  
“No,” says Enjolras. With his lifted chin, his red hooded sweatshirt, and his defiant stare, he looks more like a petulant child than a revolutionary. “We will not leave.”   
Grantaire rolls his eyes, just because of how melodramatic Enjolras sounds, but the guard isn’t so easily amused. He pulls out his radio.  
“Fine. I’ll call it in.”   
Combeferre butts in,   
“Yeah, call the real police!”   
Obviously having suffered through enough sassy protesters today, flips the switch on his radio and speaks into it.  
“Metro PD? I’m gonna need a couple of cars over at 21st Century Investment to deal with some protesters who are refusing to leave company property. Over.”   
He shoots Enjolras a smug glance as the radio crackles to life again with a reassurance from the police department.   
“This is public property!” Courf argues, gesturing to the plaza. “You don’t own the streets!”   
The guard shakes his head.  
“Kid, that marble was bought and paid for by this company. As long as you’re standing on it, it’s company property.”   
And he walks away, muttering about ‘dirty hippies’. There was an awkward silence.   
“Anyone who doesn’t want trouble with the police, leave now,” Enjolras instructs, and Grantaire considers fleeing for a moment. The younger students are already dispersing, spooked by the prospect of a run-in with the law. The girl in the uniform doesn’t leave, though, and Jehan moves to her side.  
“You should go,” he tells her, voice gentle. She can’t be older than twelve or thirteen, a little scrap of a thing with her hair in plaits. “You don’t want to get in trouble.”   
She lifts her chin, mimicking Enjolras’ defiance.  
“I’m not afraid,” she says, and her voice is stronger than her thin frame would suggest. Jehan smiles, his mouth lifting at the corners.  
“I know you’re not,” he replies, and puts a hand on her shoulder. “But you’re too young for jail, kid. You’ll have plenty of time for that later.”   
He presses a leaflet into her hand, and says,  
“Stick it to the man, kiddo.”   
She takes it and salutes him with two fingers, scout’s honor. Then she turns and disappears into the morning pedestrian traffic along the busy avenue. Jehan chuckles.  
“We need more people like that,” he says, and Grantaire realizes that he doesn’t say ‘kids’ he says ‘people’ and he thinks that the little girl would appreciate that.  
“Like what?” Grantaire asks, and there are sirens approaching, a high-pitched wail against the bustling city morning.   
“Willing to fight,” says Jehan, and then two police cars pull up and a pair of cops get out, one middle-aged man and the other younger, more virile. They amble towards Enjolras the way that men with guns do: slowly, luxuriously. Things can wait when you have a gun and the other man has a cardboard sign and a dream.   
“Having a little protest, are we?” The older of the cops steps forwards, looping his thumbs through his belt.   
“Yes,” Enjolras replies. He has not moved an inch since the guard arrived. “We are.”   
The cops-his name tag reads Hermans-checks out the posters.   
“Well, you gotta leave. 21st doesn’t want you guys out here anymore.”   
Courf fake-coughs ‘capitalist pigs’ and the young cop rolls his eyes and the older cop points at the pavement and says,  
“Either move to the sidewalk or I’ll put you all in handcuffs.”   
Enjolras and Courf tilt their heads together, exchange heated whispers while the rest of the group waits in awkward silence.  
“We’ll move to the sidewalk,” Enjolras declares, “we will continue our protest on public property.”   
Officer Hermans shrugs.  
“Do what you want. But if I get anymore complaints, I’m taking out the cuffs.”   
The cops leave-although Enjolras tells everyone that they’ve probably just parked down the street to stake out the protest-and the group shifts towards the sidewalk. Fifteen minutes later, a couple of young men and women in coats and scarves arrive.   
“They’re United For Change,” Jehan informs Grantaire. “They’re more geared towards human rights, but we team up sometimes if there’s a bigger protest.”   
A pretty African-American girl in a plaid jacket steps forwards.  
“Enjolras,” she says, and her voice is lilting, almost playful. “Got kicked off the plaza again, I see.”   
He nods, hands clasped behind his back.   
“Right now we’re just drawing public attention,” he tells her. “Letting people know about the protest on Saturday.”   
“Great,” says the girl, and she turns to her little retinue. “Guys, take some pamphlets and split up. Remi and I will take the northern stretch of the avenue, Anne will take a group down the south. Tell everyone you can about the rally on Saturday, let them know what we fight for.”   
They divide into teams, and the girl leads her group up the street, passing out flyers and leaflets, spreading the word.   
Grantaire hangs out in the background as Enjolras and Combeferre hassle pedestrians about the cause, eventually recruiting an enormous group of high-schoolers ditching class to join the rally on Saturday. By noon, everyone but Combeferre and Enjolras has left. Eponine disappeared with Marius to go ‘get coffee’ an hour ago, and and Jehan and Courf had to go to class at the university, leaving only the three stragglers. Despite their run-in with the cops and their low turn-out rate, Enjolras seems pleased.  
“Saturday will be a good day,” he predicts, and his smile speaks of things that he won’t share. “The people will come.”   
But as Grantaire glances up at the enormous metal-and-glass shards piercing the sky, he has to wonder.


End file.
